This wise saying has since then
been repeated to me by men who ought to have known better than Dr.
Walne.
[p.76]CHAPTER XXV.
THE BADAWIN OF AL-HIJAZ.
THE Arab may be divided into three races—a classification which agrees
equally well with genesitic genealogy, the traditions of the country,
and the observations of modern physiologists.[FN#1]
[p.77]The first race, indigens or autochthones, are those sub-Caucasian
tribes which may still be met with in the province of Mahrah, and
generally along the coast between Maskat and Hazramaut. [FN#2] The
Mahrah, the Janabah, and the Gara especially show a low development,
for which hardship and privation alone will not satisfactorily
account.[FN#3] These are Arab al-Aribah for whose inferiority oriental
fable accounts as usual by thaumaturgy.
The principal advenæ are the Noachians, a great Chaldaean or Mesopotamian
tribe which entered Arabia about
[p.78] 2200 A.C., and by slow and gradual encroachments drove before
them the ancient owners and seized the happier lands of the Peninsula.
The great Anzah and the Nijdi families are types of this race, which is
purely Caucasian, and shows a highly nervous temperament, together with
those signs of “blood” which distinguish even the lower animals, the horse
and the camel, the greyhound and the goat of Arabia. These advenae
would correspond with the Arab al-Mutarribah or Arabicized Arabs of the
eastern historians.[FN#4]
The third family, an ancient and a noble race dating from A.C. 1900,
and typified in history by Ishmael, still occupies the so-called
Sinaitic Peninsula. These Arabs, however, do not, and never did, extend
beyond the limits of the mountains, where, still dwelling in the
presence of their brethren, they retain all the wild customs and the
untamable spirit of their forefathers. They are distinguished from the
pure stock by an admixture of Egyptian blood,[FN#5]
[p.79] and by preserving the ancient characteristics of the Nilotic
family. The Ishmaelities are sub-Caucasian, and are denoted in history
as the Arab al-Mustarribah, the insititious or half-caste Arab.
Oriental ethnography, which, like most Eastern sciences, luxuriates in
nomenclative distinction, recognises a fourth race under the name of
Arab al-Mustajamah. These “barbarized Arabs” are now represented by such a
population as that of Meccah.
That Aus and Khazraj, the Himyaritic tribes which emigrated to
Al-Hijaz, mixed with the Amalikah, the Jurham, and the Katirah, also
races from Al-Yaman, and with the Hebrews, a northern branch of the
Semitic family, we have ample historical evidence. And they who know
how immutable is race in the Desert, will scarcely doubt that the
Badawi of Al-Hijaz preserves in purity the blood transmitted to him by
his ancestors.[FN#6]
